Updated Turks and Caicos, Providenciales

In fall of 2022 and January 2023 we stayed at The Sands. The Sands has a great location on Grace Bay. All beach amenities are included (umbrellas, palapas, sailboats, kayaks, paddle boards and snorkeling gear). The resort also has bikes and tennis court and rackets available for no charge, and is walking distance from several excellent restaurants. They have reasonable junior suites with kitchenette as well as 1 and 2 bedroom suites with full kitchens and laundry.

Restaurants

Coco Bistro

Beautiful venue and amazing food. Highly recommend and must make reservation before arriving on island. The blackened grouper is outstanding. The restaurant is outdoors amidst very large palm trees that are beautifully lit. On the same property is Coco Van which is very casual and seating is similar, with some picnic table and high table options. Food at Coco Van is excellent but served on paper and not as upscale as Coco Bistro. Coco Van has excellent fish tacos.

Coco Bistro

Da Conch Shack

This is a casual restaurant with great location on beach. Some of the tables are on deck and some are in sand. It can be windy here, and you can request a reservation on the deck which would be a little back from the beach, but still with a view. I would try to arrive before sunset. 

The restaurant is in an area called Blue Hills which is a little drive from Grace Bay hotels. Highly recommend ordering the "Pirates Pot" (for 2 people to share). And if ordering a side salad be sure to specify you would like it before your meal. Wednesday nights are their busy night, with entertainment.

Da Conch Shack

Bella Luna

Excellent Italian restaurant. We ate upstairs and the menu had lots of delicious looking options and the terrace upstairs has a treehouse feel. Next time we plan to try eating downstairs (outdoors). The menu downstairs looks like pizza and calzones and the vibe looks more casual.

Magnolia

View from Magnolia

The view from Magnolia is up high of Turtle Cove and a great place to see sunset. Service was slow and food was good.

Hemingways

Excellent location close to the beach and a delicious menu. We ate here for dinner and they have a great breakfast as well. Recommend making reservations for arrival before sunset. Hemingways is located on The Sands property.

Snorkeling

Coral Gardens

We were very happy with the variety of fish here. It is a busy and popular place, but if you swim around the orange buoys and go further out, the coral is better. Since it seems a little more shallow here, the fish are closer up and brighter colors since more sunlight (less deep). 

We saw turtles, stingrays, lionfish, and lots of parrot fish.

Smith Reef

In my original post, I mentioned a shortcut to avoid the beach walk from the gravel parking lot by Smith Reef. There is now construction and a new home so this access is no longer an option. The parking lot was sometimes full in February but  there was still street parking at the end of Coconut Road.

We saw several stingrays and turtles, as well as a lobster and many colorful reef fish.

Snorkel Boat Trip

Here is the dock Caicos Adventures uses

In October we booked a half day boat trip (morning) with Caicos Adventures on their 50 foot "Top Gun" boat. We went all the way to West Caicos and their boat was very fast. is There were 3 other couples on the trip and we made 3 stops for snorkeling. It was too rough at the first stop, so we had to find a different place to snorkel. As a result, we think a couple of the snorkel sites were pretty close together. At one of the sites we saw a large nurse shark. We saw lots of fish as well as a lobster.
 
Overall we were very happy with Caicos Adventures and would use them again. After snorkeling they had a good selection of beverages and a variety of wraps. It was the off season and they were not running these trips daily, but we were happy they could accommodate us. In October 2022 we paid $140 per person for the half day trip and currently in 2023 same trip is $150 per person. They would have picked us up from our resort, but we chose to drive ourselves to the dock.

Grace Bay Beach

Travel & Leisure magazine published TripAdvisor voted it best beach in the world in 2022